DOES CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE HUMAN MIGRATION? EVIDENCE FROM THE SIXTH NATIONAL POPULATION CENSUS IN CHINA

Abstract

This research estimates the climate change in mainland China between 1951 and 2010, and empirically analyzes the mechanism of climate change’s impact on population migration in mainland China using individual micro-data from China’s 2010 census. The study found that temperature has a significant positive effect on population migration, as the higher the temperature increases, the more likely people are to make the decision to migrate; on the contrary, rainfall has a significant negative impact on population migration, as the more the rainfall decreases, the more likely people are to make the decision to migrate. Conversely, the interaction term results show that when facing increasing temperature, females, ethnic minorities, married individuals and rural residents are more likely to migrate, while highly educated people will tend not to move out. In terms of rainfall, females, highly educated people and ethnic minorities are more likely to make migration decisions; while married individuals and rural residents are less likely to make migration decisions. The couple-matching model found that the migration decisions between couples are significantly influenced upon climate change. With the continuous rise of the Chinese government’s rural revitalization strategy, how to maintain rural residents becomes a focal issue. Rural residents are more vulnerable to climate change than urban residents, so how to effectively reduce the impact of climate change and stabilize rural residents’ production and life have become a policy-challenging issue.